Brazilian prison riot ends with 1 injured

The 485 prisoners who began rioting 24 hours earlier in the prison in the city of Nossa Senhora da Gloria on Sunday released the guard they were holding hostage and ended the uprising, during which one inmate was injured, Brazilian authorities reported.

The rebellion occurred at the Senador Leite Neto Regional Prison, a maximum security facility located 126 kilometers (78 miles) from Aracaju, the capital of the northeastern state of Sergipe.

At least four prisoners took advantage of visiting hours on Saturday - when about 100 women were inside the prison for intimate visits with their husbands - to try and escape but they were surprised and ended up overpowering the guards in the inner courtyards.

Some of their fellow inmates, however, capitalized on the confusion to overwhelm the other guards, taking one of them hostage and assuming command of the facility.

The women who were in the prison were also taken hostage, but some of them said that they had remained inside the prison of their own free will.

The rioting inmates said they were protesting the overcrowding in a prison built to house 180 convicts but which currently holds 500, and they demanded new cells, an increase in visiting hours and more physical space.

"It wasn't something scheduled to protest against the prison conditions. They tried to flee and were prevented by the prison guards," said the commander of the Militarized Police of Sergipe, Col. Mauricio Iunes.

"At first, several shots were fired to prevent the escape and one of the prisoners who tried to flee was wounded, but he was transported to a hospital on Saturday and his situation is stable," Iunes added.

The rioting prisoners negotiated their demands with the Sergipe department of Public Security and announced their surrender after reaching an agreement, the particulars of which were not revealed. EFE